Tuesday, February 13, 2001

Some Fault Bush Tax Cuts for Lean Days in Texas While President Bush is lobbying Congress to pass his $1.6 trillion tax cut proposal in Washington, lawmakers in his home state are struggling with budget problems that some critics are tracing to tax cuts Mr. Bush passed here as governor. For the last week, state legislators have grown increasingly testy about budget projections showing that the state will have little, if any, money to spare. Lawmakers in both parties are talking of possible cutbacks after the projections showed that the state's once-healthy surplus might be nearly erased by budget overruns, particularly from health care costs like Medicaid. "There's no doubt in my mind that George W. Bush's tax cuts have put us in the situation we're in right now," said State Senator Mario Gallegos, a Houston Democrat who regularly criticized Mr. Bush in the presidential campaign. http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/12/politics/12TEXA.html?pagewanted=all